Is Schizo neuro-degenerative?

JW, I'm not sure if it is or not. I'm dx'd now with bipolar affective, but I was dx'd with paranoid schizophrenia by a psychiatrist in the past. Now I'm all confused about it.

Today I felt really down, or odd, or something. I was taking Adhd meds but had to stop taking them on my own, because they stopped doing much for me. I felt more out of focus.

I haven't slept all night, I have insomnia. I lit candles and tried to watch a movie. IDK why I feel this way.

schizochic wrote:JW, I'm not sure if it is or not. I'm dx'd now with bipolar affective, but I was dx'd with paranoid schizophrenia by a psychiatrist in the past. Now I'm all confused about it.

Psychiatry’s diagnostic criteria are literally voted into existence and inserted into the American Psychiatric Association’s Diagnostic and Statistical Manual for Mental Disorders (DSM). What is voted in is a system of classification of symptoms that is drastically different from, and foreign to, anything in medicine.

Your symptoms are your symptoms , you already know them so the diagnosis is only naming something you already know. Get it ?

schizochic wrote:Although Adderal can cause psychosis in normal people, it was more sudden in me. My dad called me from out of the country, and his phone was wired to another state, so I got paranoid that he was part of a secret government monitoring program, basically just was thrust into a delusion for a period of time.

I thought there was cameras in the smoke detectors after taking Adderal for the axiety caused by withdrawal of other meds. This started in the Adderal crash.


Anyway , what were you like before taking meds ?

Well before I took Vyvanse I was going to college and doing well, with no symptoms other than I wanted to keep up more, and I felt a little blank. Before I took Abilify which is what I've taken for like 8 years, I had a depressive episode. I lost all feeling of emotion and ability, that's usually described the onset of psychosis but IDK. I've done ok on the medication. All my symptoms went away it seemed.

Hey SchizoChic,

Although it's true that schizophrenia is often described as a neurodegenerative disorder because it predicts some negative changes to the brain over time, this doesn't really take into consideration individual differences in terms of the course of the disorder. According to the research literature on schizophrenia, about one third of people respond well to medication and end up making a full recovery. Some of the variables that predict better recovery are positive responses to medication, which is true for you, and few negative symptoms, which is also true for you because you have paranoid schizophrenia. So if we can generalize the findings of current research and apply it to your case, it seems that you really do have a good chance of recovering and not ending up in the neurodegenerative category.

So just stick with your treatment, avoid stress and make sure to use as much support as you can get.

Best wishes and take care.

Copy_Cat wrote:Psychiatry’s diagnostic criteria are literally voted into existence and inserted into the American Psychiatric Association’s Diagnostic and Statistical Manual for Mental Disorders (DSM).

That's true that the diagnostic criteria are determined by votes but it doesn't follow that the theoretical constructs the APA claim exist, schizophrenia, bipolar disorder, major depressive disorder, etcetera, don't exist. Otherwise they could just take a vote and banish schizophrenia from existence and everyone would feel better.

Just to throw a wrinkle into here...

Many times I'd go into a new psychologist or psychiatrist, get asked one question (what is your relationship to your mother?) not be able to answer it, and be diagnosed with either schizophrenia or schizo-affective disorder. Then, they'd deny that diagnosis as they treated me for everything BUT that.

Now I know I have a fruit cocktail of problems and my current psychiatrist has more or less told me we don't have all of it named yet. So... if you know all of your symptoms, meds have them controlled, and those selfsame meds are not adding to your symptoms list, go for it and don't worry about some labeling differences. Your better, your life works now, please please take it. Drugs cause me nightmare level issues due to autism complications and have given more permanent side effects than any benefits.

remusmdh wrote:Just to throw a wrinkle into here...

Many times I'd go into a new psychologist or psychiatrist, get asked one question (what is your relationship to your mother?) not be able to answer it, and be diagnosed with either schizophrenia or schizo-affective disorder. Then, they'd deny that diagnosis as they treated me for everything BUT that.

Now I know I have a fruit cocktail of problems and my current psychiatrist has more or less told me we don't have all of it named yet. So... if you know all of your symptoms, meds have them controlled, and those selfsame meds are not adding to your symptoms list, go for it and don't worry about some labeling differences. Your better, your life works now, please please take it. Drugs cause me nightmare level issues due to autism complications and have given more permanent side effects than any benefits.

I can definitely relate to that. I don't fall to fall trap to mimicry. I could easily be all three, Bipolar, Aspergers, and Schizophrenic. I guess the problem is that some do very well and fall between categories, or don't have all of the symptoms of a certain mental illness. But according to all my personal psychological assessments online, I scored 0 for schizophrenia, likely for Bipolar and likely for AS. Right now it's Bipolar and ADD. But actually, I'm focusing much better now without being on Adderall. I feel clear and calm and relieved. I am also determined to finish my schooling.

And then there was a kind of shock for me to discover, my symptoms closely resemble Bipolar more-so than anything else. The bouts of irrational discomfort, and mania which I've always had...aka I think faster or absorb more information. I have always gotten about 32-35 for Aspergers assessments which means I think, on the cusp of it. ADD seems arbitrary. Actually, I'm starting to get frustrated with psychiatry and how arbitrary the labels are. You can't mix brain science with speculative fiction, ya know?

bright_star wrote:I can definitely relate to that. I don't fall to fall trap to mimicry. I could easily be all three, Bipolar, Aspergers, and Schizophrenic. I guess the problem is that some do very well and fall between categories, or don't have all of the symptoms of a certain mental illness. But according to all my personal psychological assessments online, I scored 0 for schizophrenia, likely for Bipolar and likely for AS. Right now it's Bipolar and ADD. But actually, I'm focusing much better now without being on Adderall. I feel clear and calm and relieved. I am also determined to finish my schooling.

And then there was a kind of shock for me to discover, my symptoms closely resemble Bipolar more-so than anything else. The bouts of irrational discomfort, and mania which I've always had...aka I think faster or absorb more information. I have always gotten about 32-35 for Aspergers assessments which means I think, on the cusp of it. ADD seems arbitrary. Actually, I'm starting to get frustrated with psychiatry and how arbitrary the labels are. You can't mix brain science with speculative fiction, ya know?

Fair warning about diagnosing yourself. The Flu, the Cold, and the Plague have like five, six core symptoms in common, but just about any school kid in the West can tell you the lethality differences.

Don't bother asking psychiatrsts or doctors "do i have X?" because when you do they tend to turn up their noses and consider you a problem patient and stop hearing most of what you say after that point. What I did and do was take what I'm told, go look it up online, and then go back and ask "well if I'm schizophrenic why aren't you treating it with lithium?" Her answer? "well no, you aren't schizophrenic, you are actually schizo-affective." go home, more research "well if i'm schizo-affective why aren't I on..." this went on for five months before she finally told me 'well if you don't think the plls are helping, you can just stop coming in."

That was how MHMRA of Texas terminated my services. I was given depacoate for five months, same dosage, never asked anything about my symptoms or side effects, nothing was even said by the psychiatrist unless I said something. And guess what she consistently put on each report? (she had me post it in the hall for the nurse to pick up) "shows improvement". Now, unless that woman had a photographic memory since she only saw me for like 10 min once a month... she was "calling it in" and not doing her job. That is the risk of "state health care", be very careful of these things.

My latest psychiatrist has been a lot of help diagnosis wise, information wise, etc. Butt useless for help getting my treatment, what I should try, and when i was on pills, she was constantly screwing them up with wrong dosages, wrong pill types... it was like she didn't keep any track of what she had me on. So after my last... unpleasant side effects and her ignoring my complaints of severe genital burning and physical damage... i just stopped all pills by slowly staggering them out every other day until that prescription emptied. I still go to her, because no other psychiatrist has ever even admitted I have depression, much less anxiety or flashback back issues, lol.

Just saying... be careful about how you go about these things. Doctors are human too and they have ego's and feelings. Far too many of them have the maturity level of children and get really pissy if you don't lick their ass and call them goddess/god >_>

Infinite_Jester wrote:That's true that the diagnostic criteria are determined by votes but it doesn't follow that the theoretical constructs the APA claim exist, schizophrenia, bipolar disorder, major depressive disorder, etcetera, don't exist. Otherwise they could just take a vote and banish schizophrenia from existence and everyone would feel better.

I try to explain to people that they are not diagnosing a physical disorder when they ask "what do I have" as if its streptococcus Strep throat is a contagious infection, spread through close contact with an infected individual. A definitive diagnosis is made based on the results of a throat culture. Or Influenza, commonly known as the 'flu' , is an infectious disease of birds and mammals caused by RNA viruses of the family Orthomyxoviridae, the influenza viruses. The most common symptoms are chills, fever, sore throat, muscle pains, headache (often severe), coughing, weakness/fatigue and general discomfort.


A physical disorder (as a medical term) is often used as a term in contrast to a mental disorder, in an attempt to differentiate medical disorders that have an available mechanical test (such as chemical tests or brain scans), from those disorders which have no laboratory or imaging test, and are diagnosed only by behavioral syndrome (such as those in the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM).

I didn't know all this when I got started on pills. I realy belived I had low seratonin and it was causing my symptoms.

I would like to explain it better with less words.

bright_star wrote:Well before I took Vyvanse I was going to college and doing well, with no symptoms other than I wanted to keep up more, and I felt a little blank. Before I took Abilify which is what I've taken for like 8 years, I had a depressive episode. I lost all feeling of emotion and ability, that's usually described the onset of psychosis but IDK. I've done ok on the medication. All my symptoms went away it seemed.

Vyvance ! I had to try that "new" crap. Its like Adderal but it takes forever to wear off and you get stuck in the yucky crash for 5 hours instead of 1 like with Adderal IR. Vyvance is "new" but not better in any way unless you own the new patent and make billions...

I asked what you were like before meds cause I lost sight of "before" when I got caught up in meds and screwed up by them leading to more and more of them.

Getting off them and going back to the way I was before is 100 times better. Thank God I discovered the truth about Psychiatry before it screwed many more years of my life.

the hardest part was the withdrawal from the pills and not confusing that with before medication.

Copy_Cat wrote:the hardest part was the withdrawal from the pills and not confusing that with before medication.

Ain't that the truth! It doesn't seem to matter how slow you discontinue meds - withdrawal is no joke.